Key Takeaways
- Sources say the merged CLARITY Act adds over 70 pages and could drop the week of July 13.
- The bill needs 60 Senate votes; two Democrats warn unresolved ethics rules could cost their support.
- Floor action is targeted for the week of July 20, ahead of the Aug. 7 recess seen as the deadline.
A Development That Could Change a Lot
The new draft would fuse the versions produced by the Senate Banking and Agriculture Committees into a single text. Reporters following the effort said more than 70 pages of text have been added to the unified version, which is described as placing heavier emphasis on consumer protections than earlier drafts.
With only three working weeks in July and the first week of August left before lawmakers scatter for the summer break and attention shifts to the fall midterm elections, the coming July 13 to Aug. 7 stretch stands to be a decisive window for the industry’s best shot at federal market-structure rules.
The biggest unresolved question is a Democrat-demanded restriction that would keep senior government officials, including the president, from maintaining business ties with the crypto sector. According to reports, the merged text has not yet solidified a position on that provision, and ideas under discussion include allowing state attorneys general to sue over ethics violations.
Two Democrats who voted to advance the Banking Committee’s version have warned they may not approve a final bill unless the ethics provisions are addressed. The White House, for its part, has not signed off on the merged text or engaged in recent negotiations, and a White House letter noted that Democrats had not nominated candidates for the minority seats at the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).
People familiar with the negotiations told media personnel the effort had “slowed to a crawl” in recent weeks. Federal preemption of state rules also remains unsettled, another reminder that merging two committee products is easier to announce than to execute.
A Four-Week Window to the August Recess
Senate Republican leaders, including Banking Chair Tim Scott and Majority Leader John Thune, have been coordinating a push for a July vote, as Bitcoin.com News previously reported. Moreover, Senator Cynthia Lummis, the Wyoming Republican who has championed the bill, has continually pushed it forward as a landmark consumer-first legislation, claiming:
“[It is] a consumer-friendly disclosure framework for digital assets. Not retrofitted from 1933. Built for 2026 and beyond.”
Lummis has also defended the bill against illicit-finance criticism from Senator Elizabeth Warren, pointing to more than 16 safeguards in the text. Outside endorsements have continued to accumulate as well, with the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives (NOBLE) backing the bill earlier this month.
That said, even if the Senate clears the bill, the House of Representatives must approve the Senate’s version before it can reach President Trump’s desk, and the House has been slowed for weeks by Republican infighting. Miss the August recess, and the effort could slip into 2027.